Monday, July 11, 2011

Forgotten Dates in Military History: The Doha Dash, 11 JUL 1991

Clif's Notes Version; malfunctioning vehicle heater cooks off ammunition in an M992 ammunition carrier that then sets off a series of massive secondary explosions that effectively destroy a hell of a lot of 11ACR's AFVs - a total of 102 vehicles including 4 M1A1's. The toll was orders of magnitude higher than combat losses in the just-concluded Second Gulf War.Read about it here.

My son once asked my why soldiers marched around and did everything together like robots. I explained that in the old days soldiers fought that way. That the rule of thumb is that the closest weapon is the most dangerous, and that the man beside you - even though he was on "your side" - was closer than the closest enemy. So the soldiers learned to handle their weapons like that to keep from shooting each other.He didn't get it.(h/t to John Cole at Balloon Juice, one of the veterans of the Dash)

jim: I wonder, too. Seems like a dumb idea, but the other thing is I have no idea how they figured this out; sounds like the vehicle was vaporized. So unless someone in BN Maint was actually working on the thing, I'd file this under "best guess"...